AfterNet 01 - Good Cop Dead Cop

after. Pleased to meet you, Alex.”
    Munroe was impressed. Unlike most people introduced to a disembodied person, Feore didn’t appear uncomfortable, and he automatically looked to Yamaguchi’s right, about where Munroe was standing.
    “This is the guy from the TC last night. What’s he doing here?” he asked his partner.
    “Alex says hi. Bob works for the AfterNet. He’s a big shot there.”
    “Sorry, Linda, forgot my manners. But ask him what he’s doing here.”
    “Alex is curious why you’re here,” she told Feore. She looked back to Munroe. “He got invited same as us.”
    “Rybold’s a pretty big player. I met him through the Tattered Cover; the owners introduced us. You know, he was actually trying to steal the sponsorship for last night’s party away from the AfterNet. Anyway, I must have made an impression and he invited me.”
    “Bob was trying to cheer me up,” she said out loud. Privately, she told him, “Stand down Alex I like him.”
    “OK, OK. Just seemed like a weird coincidence.”
    “Maybe U want to move along, mingle?” she told him.
    “Hey, wait a minute,” Feore said. “Are you the same Alex Munroe with the blog?”
    “He says he is.”
    “You’re quite a celebrity.”
    “He is?”
    “Oh yeah. He’s causing quite a stir. I have no idea where you got those projections but they’re dead on.”
    “What projections?” she asked.
    “About the challenges we’re going to have in the third world, getting the AfterNet accepted and the need for a cheaper, simpler public terminal. We’d just signed a deal with Red Hat for a stripped down OS and he knew about it. How did he find out?”
    “Tell him it’s amazing what you can find if you look hard enough.”
    She relayed this and Feore responded, “What, you’re saying you found that out by a search?”
    “Tell him I found an RFP that the AfterNet put out a year ago and …”
    “Wait!” she shouted. “Look, you two should get a room. Why don’t you go sit at that terminal over there? You won’t have to go through me.”
    “Do you mind?” Feore asked.
    “No, no problem at all,” she said out loud. “Bring him back when you’re done, Alex,” she said to him privately. “I’m not done with him yet.”
    “Where will you be?”
    “By the food. I think I’m getting my second wind.”
    “I’m not going to use the cat door, Linda”
    “But I can’t leave the door open. Look, I turn down the thermostat, leave the flap on the cat door up and you can come and go as you please.”
    Munroe and Yamaguchi were arguing over her offer of letting him stay at her apartment while she was in Winter Park skiing Sunday and Monday.
    They’d left Rybold’s party around 6 p.m. and Munroe had taken her offer to stay the evening. She had plugged her terminal into her home entertainment system and she could hear him in five-channel surround sound while watching the old Alastair Sim Christmas Carol movie with closed captioning. Yamaguchi was on the couch and she’d run an extra long patch cord between the terminal and the audio equipment to allow Munroe to sit with her.
    “A lot of the places you might hang out will be closed anyway,” she argued. “I just don’t want you wandering the streets. And since you’re not interested in skiing …”
    “No, I’m definitely not interested in skiing.” He thought the sport a monumental waste of time when he was alive, doubly so dead. He also didn’t know how to ski or how he could do it dead. “Besides, I know how much Mary likes my company.”
    She was glad he didn’t want to go with them on their trip. Mary was a fellow officer from district 6 and she didn’t feel comfortable around Munroe, always referring to him as “that dead guy,” or “creepy, dead guy.” She was pretty surprised they had collaborated on her Christmas present.
    “I’m sure you two could get along,” she said, not believing it for a second. “I just feel bad … you know, the holidays, being alone … maybe it would be a good idea if you came.” Oh please, don’t believe me.
    “Liar,” he said. “OK, if it’ll make you feel better, leave the cat door open and if I’m desperate enough, I might use the place.”
    “I guess that’s a compromise. Oh, here comes that stupid commercial again.” Munroe looked up at the screen and saw a bedroom at night, with two people asleep. They awake, startled, by someone, probably a burglar, lurking in the shadows. Like most commercials, there was